The Hunted
by Lovingh3art
Summary: Somebody wants two particular mutants dead and puts out a hit on them. The good news? Sabretooth is one of them. The bad news? Mystique is the other. The two enemies have to somehow live with each other while taking down paid killers and finding the benefactor that wants them buried in the ground.


**Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men comic characters and all the worldbuilding aspects from them. All original characters and concepts featured here are reserved to me.**

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Chapter One

_Bite Me_

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Mystique took a long, deep breath and shut her eyes. She could feel the cool air filter on top of her body to comfort it. She liked being this way, close to sleep in a shitty motel room with the blinds down and the moon out. Compared to her days as a bounty hunter or supervillain, it was remarkably pleasant. She really, really wanted to stay this way for hours on end and forget who she was.

But then she felt something in the air.

Body heat. Hot breaths. A creak on the floor.

_Goddammit. _She'd already known who it was before her eyes ripped wide awake, but she still needed to confirm her suspicions. Lo and behold, the same three-hundred and eighty-pound jerk who'd tried to kill her time and again was standing right on her side of the bed. His eyes were narrowed, signaling his impending attempt at her life.

And she sure as shit wasn't going to let that happen.

Her fist inflated before she directed it into his face. The punch sent him backward, crashing into the wall with a snarl and a quick slash of his other hand. That gave her enough time to dart off the bed and scale to the other side of the room. Panting, she remembered that her clothing was still packed in the dresser. On his side of the room.

Oh, well. She could fight undressed for a bit.

Sabretooth recovered from the blow and immediately charged at her. She ducked under his clawed arm, deflating her ribcage to avoid the blow. It was when she did this that she noticed his eyes were amber yellow. He'd lost it and wouldn't stop until she cut off his breathing off, completely.

Karma seemingly came back to bite, though, when he moved back in time to slash at her back. Fresh pain caught her, and Mystique stopped on top of her pillows. Sweating, she began shifting her body when he pounced at her again. His arms and legs slithered, coiling around his frenzy-like appendages until he was constrained to simply growling in a full-body bind. _Fuck!_ Just keeping him restrained was taking all of her mental effort.

The beast's breathing softened, though not by much. Raven didn't budge in her hold, instead deciding to lean her face in so she can stare back. "What. Do. You. Want?" She barked with a voice as hard as gravel.

He took another breath. "…You dead, witch."

His breathing was getting more normal, but in her anger, she didn't care. "What a… comment. In fact, why don't you add onto that by getting your idiotic morals in check? I doubt you have the funds to afford room and board without bloodshed, Victor."

"Die!"

This was getting nowhere. Frankly, Raven was tired AND annoyed. Her appendages nearing signs of exhaustion, she pooled all her strength into shooting him into the far-off dresser, unto which he crashed onto sharp wooden pieces. Raven recoiled herself and stood resolutely with a death glare, staring him down as he was picking himself up. "Are you going to start with me again, Victor? We've done this cat-and-mouse dance a hundred times already."

The exact opposite of her peculations happened, however. Creed's hand came to his face, looking woozy before he glanced up to her. Genuine confusion had entrapped his expressions. "Wuh…Darkholme?"

Well…that certainly was unexpected.

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"Who or what was after you?"

The fresh cup of coffee was both a morning refresher and a truce. They were stationed at one of the booths of a diner, located two blocks from the motel. The presiding waitress and a man reading a worn paper shared a glance at them now and then, but with the straw hat and an average Caucasian disguise, the assassins blended in like it was nothing.

"Dunno," Creed elaborated. Raven noticed that his fingers were scrapping a little on the table's edge. Whatever had sent him after her was lingering. "Got burned a ' couple a' days ago by some goons 'n black SUVs, and then had ta' take off from my job. Getting' out o' Brooklyn was a nightmare."

"And of course, you thought it was necessary to try to finish me off."

Creed's nostril's flared. He reached into his patchy coat pocket and produced a small syringe, small doses of a dark green content everywhere in it. A splotch of the chemical splattered near her plate and for a second, she worried her pancakes might get contaminated.

"What is that?" Raven asked.

"Was on the patsies that tried killin' me," Creed replied. "Some o' it got in my system. By th' time I got t' ya', it did somethin' t' my mind. Made me so angry n' mad I couldn't think. Like one o' the runt's berserker rages, I'd wager."

That seemed very unlike several pharmaceuticals that came to mind. This wasn't the first time someone had drugged one of what Raven liked to call "Weapon X alum." Then again, Weapon X was out of the picture, and in the last few years, the X-Men's world has become mucked in time travel, magic, and alien technology. Virtually hundreds of enemies popped into her mind, and that just made considerations even more hectic.

The substance could wait. Raven's self-confidence, however, could not. "Why were you after me?"

"Th' truth? Thought they might be-"

"Don't act like you care, Victor. I'm very capable of handling myself. Spill it," Raven demanded.

Creed sighed and pocketed the vial back into his overcoat. "…Heard one o' 'em mention you by name before I went crazy on 'em."

"So they're after me?" This could be a problem…at least, if she let it. "Wow, how smart of you!"

"Frail, I don't like bein' here any more th' you," Creed demanded while inching over the table, "but like it or not, we're both in danger. Ya' might as well cut th' beef fer now; we need t' stick together."

"Based on something you claim to have heard while under the influence of a chemical we still don't understand. Lovely."

"Wouldn't be the first time, now would it?" He argued.

She couldn't disagree with that, and so raised a hand to attract the waitress. "We're ready to pay," she said with the best 50's smile she could muster.

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The two exited the doors and made their way to the pickup truck Raven had acquired a few days beforehand. Despite possessing dust on its' window shield, it was a better cry than the beat-up bike Creed had his hands on.

"I'm driving."

"Says who?" He snarled back.

Raven's eyes flashed an opaquer yellow than normal, her blue skin revealing itself. "Says me, the only one of us who has brains…and last time I checked, a driving license that wasn't suspended."

"Bite me," Creed sneered.

Raven obliged, firmly slapping him in the face. A trickle of blood rolled down from his nose into his lips. To her muted surprise, Creed wiped the blood off and then licked it from his fingers. No effect, apparently.

"Nice one, red."

"Pig," Raven muttered under her breath. This would most likely be a common scenario on their foreseeable endeavor together. But when did she ever had a chance to get satisfaction out of beating him up?

As she got into the car, Raven felt her phone ping and scooped it out of her coat's pocket. A contact whose name she couldn't recall, per her orders, had begun searching for any activity on the dark web related to her and Sabretooth. The assignment had been issued mere hours ago. Clearly, this was their only lead.

She stared at the screen, seatbelt on, and completely stopped any form of motion.

"Fuck."

"Darkholme?" Creed hollered, aware that something was amiss. "What soiled yer pants?"

"I don't know, Victor. Perhaps the bounty of TWENTY MILLION THAT'S ON OUR HEADS."

One shocked and the other having nearly lost her collected demeanor, the two assassins turned to look on to the desert roads ahead, speechless.

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**A/N: Gonna be honest here, I absolutely do not like Mystique. She just seems like such an annoying villain who constantly hurts people and walks over anyone just to be spiteful and mean. I know she has her fans, but just saying.**

**But the way this story plays out, I'm trying to make her more of a badass I can see and like as a result. Hope that applies to some of you guys reading. Also, Sabretooth is my fav villain and thus a big motive for this tale.**

**Thanks for reading, and feel free to favorite, follow, or review! I can promise with certainty that this story and the rest of my other ones will be getting worked on ASAP, count on it!**


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